Are Your Subscribers Organized? Why It’s Better to Assume the Worst
Posted by Dave McCue on June 2nd, 2009
Everybody loves features. Salespeople point out fancy features to heighten customer interest, and customers love knowing those fancy features will be at their disposal once they’ve made a purchase. Unfortunately, many of those features never actually get put to use—you may have slipped your feet into a pair of ROOS at one time, but did you ever actually use that little zipper pocket? Didn’t think so.
In the same way, a typical email client boasts quite a few features that, if used properly, can make for a much better end-user experience. However, it’s taking a long leap of faith to assume that your subscribers are utilizing any of these features outside of the basic Create-Send-Open-Reply variety. For instance, while the application of Filters (aka, Rules) can do wonders for subscribers who are frustrated with their crowded and unorganized inboxes, it’s much more likely that the emails you send are being delivered to the top level inbox along with every other non-Junk message that is received.
Preview panes are another feature that makes inbox skimming easier and more productive for recipients, but they are not a default setting on all email clients and therefore must be activated by the user.
Many email marketing messages prompt subscribers with some version of the following: “to ensure future delivery, please add this sender to your address book.” However, even providing instructions on how to do this doesn’t guarantee such a feature will be used.
Email marketers tend to be heavy users of email in their personal lives as well (and I am no exception). With that in mind, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that some of the steps we routinely take to manage our inboxes and improve our email experience aren’t even considered by many recipients who aren’t as well-versed in email.
The temptation is always there to “get to the good stuff” when creating an email message—the design, the colors, the content, all of the great things that will make readers glad they opened your message. But never lose sight of the fact that recipients need to get to that point first, before they can ever appreciate all of your great content. Yes, they have the tools at their disposal within their email client to make your life as an email marketer much easier, but operate under the assumption that those tools are not being used.
A good sender reputation, recognizable “From” name, quality subject line and effective use of pre-header text are all ways to get into—and stand out—in subscriber inboxes. Take care of the little things, and even subscribers who don’t get the most out of their email clients will want to get to the “good stuff” within your message.
